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Session 3453

Engineers Need Mentors Too!

Sayward H. Touton1, Cory P. McDonald1 Gretchen L. Hein2, Amy E. Monte2

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering1 Department of Engineering Fundamentals2 Michigan Technological University Houghton, MI

Abstract

The Graduate, Undergraduate Initiative for Development and Enhancement (GUIDE) program at Michigan Technological University (MTU) is a unique scholarship program that couples underrepresented students with mentors for their first year in engineering. The goal of GUIDE is to stimulate academic success through the example set by each mentor. Each first year student, or mentee, is mentored by a second year undergraduate student and a graduate student. By structuring the groups in this manner, the mentee receives advice from two different perspectives and experiences. Having just completed their first year of college, the undergraduate mentor can better relate to, and therefore offer advice to typical first year concerns, such as how to approach a professor and where to go to get tutored in a specific subject. The graduate students are participating in the Peace Corps Master’s International program in Civil and Environmental Engineering. These students typically have diverse interests and are service motivated. The graduate student mentor is also the team leader and guides both students based on his/her own college experience. Both mentors encourage good study habits, involvement in a professional engineering society, and career planning. Each group is required to meet at least twice a week to ensure that everyone is participating and to discuss issues of concern. Usually, the meetings are not all business. They are generally time to socialize and have fun together, because social interaction is important in developing relationships and gaining trust within the group. Some team activities have been: volunteering at the humane society, hiking to a local waterfall, and cooking dinner together. This paper will discuss the benefits of being a GUIDE scholar as well as the motivation necessary to ensure a successful first year experience in engineering.

Introduction

Always keep a mentor in your life. This advice should be heeded not only by young people, but by everyone, in every stage of life. Just think, if everyone modeled their life after someone they admired or who challenged them to be a better person, then each person would be a mentor to someone and a mentee, so to speak, to another. This lifelong process is a dynamic commitment

Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education

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Touton, S., & McDonald, C., & Monte, A., & Hein, G. (2004, June), Engineers Need Mentors Too! Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--12899